September 10, 2025

From WBR to AVN:

Building Negotiation Success One Week at a Time

Annual Vendor Negotiations (AVN) are the pivotal moment when brands secure the terms that shape their growth trajectory. These negotiations set the foundation for investment in promotional levers, distribution expansion, and margin sustainability. But here is the reality: AVN is not a one-day event — it is the outcome of 52 weeks of disciplined preparation.

Andrew Hamada, Reason Automation
Kara Babb & Nick Gezzar, Flying Tiger Partners
Martin Heubel, Consulterce
Danny Silverman, Silverstream Consulting
Stacy Hanks, VP E-Commerce, Surewerx

Amazon Vendor Negotiations (AVN) are one of the highest-stakes interactions a brand has with Amazon. Success depends not on a single meeting, but on disciplined preparation built week after week. This article draws on five days of intensive webinar sessions with Amazon experts to provide a roadmap for vendors to build leverage, discipline, and results.

At its core, AVN success comes from consistency. The Weekly Business Review (WBR) is the mechanism Amazon uses internally to drive rigor, accountability, and data-based storytelling. Vendors who adopt this practice gain a powerful advantage: the ability to speak Amazon’s language, quantify root causes, and negotiate from a position of strength.

This document guides you through what AVN success looks like, how to work backwards from negotiations to your weekly processes, and how to set up and scale WBRs for cross-functional impact. Along the way, we highlight where presenters agreed, where they offered different perspectives, and how brands can apply this knowledge for lasting results.

1. What AVN Success Looks Like

AVN success means walking into negotiations with leverage, clarity, and credibility. The outcomes that matter are:

  • Profitable terms. Protecting margins while sustaining Amazon’s trust.

  • Defensible counterarguments. Using data to refute outsized asks.

  • Strategic alignment. Ensuring Amazon sees you as a reliable partner.

Kara Babb emphasized resilience: “The vendors that have had the most success are the ones who are just as annoying back to Amazon as Amazon is to them. They know the data, they come armed, and they can push back in Amazon’s own language.”

Andrew Hamada framed it in terms of intimidation: “Amazon has created a world of acronyms and metrics to overwhelm you. The first step to success is not to be intimidated, but to flip that strategy back on them.”

Martin Heubel highlighted the dual perspective required: “If you only track your own KPIs—sales, margins—you miss what Amazon is measuring. Their net PPM and sell-out performance drive decisions. AVN success means addressing both sides.”

Danny Silverman added the media lens: “Your vendor manager may not care how much you spent on retail media, but if you ignore it in your own preparation, you’ll miss a huge lever for driving traffic and conversion.”

In short, AVN success is defined by arriving at the table with:

  • Proven ability to diagnose root causes.

  • Quantification of impact in Amazon’s own metrics.

  • Clear trade-off frameworks.

  • Evidence that you manage your account with Amazon-level rigor.

2. Working Backwards from AVN

To achieve these outcomes, vendors must work backwards. Nick Gezzar was direct: “Every time you communicate with Amazon, you are negotiating. If you’re not in an active negotiation, you’re setting conditions for the next one.”

Working backwards means treating each week as AVN prep:

  • Document root causes of outliers.

  • Quantify impacts in basis points and contribution to change.

  • Track actions, owners, and deadlines.

  • Capture proof points that can be repurposed in AVN.

Kara Babb’s story of refuting a doubled damage allowance illustrates the payoff. By showing that the issue stemmed from a single SKU with packaging problems—and that overall damage rates were below historical averages—the ask “magically went away.”

3. Setting Up a WBR

The WBR is the operational mechanism that makes AVN success possible. Danny Silverman clarified: “A WBR is not a PDF or an email. It is a meeting. The pre-read is important, but the point is live discussion, accountability, and action.”

Key elements for setup:

  • Cadence: Weekly, preferably Tuesday (after data lag). It’s extremely important to establish the discipline of examining the business every week in a predictable, repeatable fashion even if there are some weeks where you don’t find anything. The practice will help the team run WBR more efficiently and in less time, creating space for more topics (or giving people more productive time in the week).

  • Attendees: Sales, supply chain, finance, marketing, media, with rotating product/brand stakeholders. Include senior leadership once a month, not every week.

  • Structure: Start with last week’s action items, review inputs (traffic, conversion, availability, ASP), identify 2-3 action items and assign owners for accountability.

  • Documentation: Centralize in a shared dashboard or tool for alignment.

  • Tools and Templates: Dashboard or scorecard tied to the retail formula, like Reason Automation’s BASIS. Rolling log of issues/actions (used later for AVN narrative). Visual dashboards with limited slides; as Andrew Hamada noted, “If it’s 50 slides, it’s not a WBR, it’s a quarterly business review.”)

Pitfalls:

  • Letting the meeting drift past 60 minutes.

  • Turning into data recitation instead of action.

  • Failing to track follow-ups, leading to the same issue resurfacing weekly.

4. Choosing KPIs and Applying the Retail Formula

More than purchase order metrics, the retail formula (Traffic × Conversion × Price × Availability = Retail Sales) is the non-negotiable anchor of WBR discipline.

Each input is a controllable lever:

  • Traffic: Media spend, PR, seasonality, social virality.

  • Conversion: Content quality, pricing parity, reviews and star rating.

  • Availability: Forecast accuracy, supply chain execution, buy box %.

  • ASP: Promotions, competitive pricing.

Best Practice:
Each WBR should explicitly walk through the formula. Instead of separate siloed reports, structure the meeting around:

  1. What drove traffic last week?

  2. How did that traffic convert?

  3. What pricing/promotions influenced results?

  4. What products were available to fulfill demand?

Link to AVN: When brands show up with six months of retail formula trend analysis, with accompanying records of their actions, they can prove exactly which lever needs investment and how past investment delivered ROI.

5. Crafting the Narrative for Leadership

One of the most overlooked yet critical elements of Amazon Vendor Negotiations is the ability to communicate upwards inside your own organization. AVN prep is not just about arming yourself for Amazon; it’s about securing internal support, resources, and alignment from leadership. If senior executives don’t understand the stakes or the trade-offs, you risk being underprepared or underfunded when Amazon makes demands.

The Weekly Business Review is the proving ground for this narrative. By consistently framing problems, root causes, and next steps, you are not only rehearsing for Amazon but also building credibility with your own leadership team. The goal is to ensure leaders see the Amazon business as well-managed, transparent, and worth supporting.

Andrew Hamada warned against vanity updates: “The temptation is to turn WBRs into a laundry list of what you did. Leaders tune out fast. Pair the data with a clear ‘so what.’”

Formula for narrative:

  1. State the trend.

  2. Explain the root cause.

  3. Define actions and owners.

Simplify crafting a weekly narrative with techniques like contribution to change, built into tools like BASIS.

6. Cross-Functional Discipline

Even the best WBR structures fail without cross-functional discipline. Amazon operates as a tightly integrated ecosystem, and vendors must mirror that level of coordination. True leverage in AVN comes when sales, supply chain, finance, marketing, and media are not only aligned but consistently accountable to each other.

This discipline ensures that issues are caught early, actions are executed reliably, and Amazon-facing teams always have backup from internal stakeholders. Without it, vendors risk being reactive and divided when Amazon escalates asks.

Nick Gezzar highlighted the supply chain link: “Being in stock with Amazon is the first step to success. If your supply chain isn’t in the room, you’re not solving the root problem.”

Kara Babb noted the value of finance participation: “Finance should comb through chargebacks, shortages, and payments every week. The WBR is where they enforce discipline and make sure Amazon is paying what’s owed.”

Martin Heubel stressed the broader need: “Bring in cross-functional stakeholders when data spikes can’t be explained. Ops, finance, or marketing may have the missing piece of the story.”

7. Scaling from WBR to AVN

Scaling is about building consistency, expanding scope, and connecting the dots between tactical execution and strategic direction. A single WBR can address immediate blockers, but the real power comes from creating a rhythm of weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews that compound into annual AVN readiness.

Scaling requires vendors to:

  • Maintain Consistency: Lock in a recurring cadence and structure so teams know what to expect and prepare accordingly.

  • Expand Depth: Move from monitoring weekly inputs (traffic, conversion, availability, ASP) to analyzing broader trends in MBRs and long-term strategies in QBRs.

  • Cascade Insights: Use WBR findings to feed into MBR trend validation, and escalate major risks into QBR discussions.

  • Build Institutional Memory: Document outcomes across the year so AVN prep is an output of ongoing processes, not a last-minute scramble.

  • Create Strategic Alignment: Ensure the quarterly compass set in QBRs is visible to leadership and cascaded down into weekly execution.

When done well, scaling ensures that every WBR builds leverage for AVN. Instead of treating negotiations as a fire drill, the organization arrives prepared with a year of data, actions, and cross-functional alignment.

8. PUTTING IT TOGETHER: YOUR Practical Checklist

  1. Set cadence: weekly WBR, monthly MBR, quarterly QBR.

  2. Build cross-functional team.

  3. Track input KPIs: traffic, conversion, availability, ASP.

  4. Tell the story: problem → cause → action.

  5. Automate reporting.

  6. Document actions and owners.

  7. Maintain 24/7 vigilance.

  8. Treat each WBR as AVN prep.

Glossary

  • AVN: Amazon Vendor Negotiation.

  • WBR/MBR/QBR: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly Business Reviews.

  • ASP: Average Selling Price.

  • CTC: Contribution to Change.

  • BPS/BIPS: Basis points.

  • Net PPM: Net Pure Product Margin.

  • Andon Cord: Mechanism to pull problematic ASINs offline.

FAQ

Q: Should a WBR be a report or a meeting?
A: A meeting, with pre-reads for efficiency.

Q: Who owns the WBR?
A: Sales leads, but all functions participate. Use RACI for clarity.

Q: How long should a WBR take?
A: 45–60 minutes.

Q: What KPIs matter most?
A: Inputs—traffic, conversion, availability, ASP.